Nine Circles
by TheErrantShrew
Summary: A series of CloTi drabbles, based on the nine circles of Hell. Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart move on from the horrors - together.
**I: Limbo
** _An interminable emptiness; lost between two planes._

* * *

 _This is Hell._

She either is, or she isn't. That's what Cloud Strife tells himself as his knuckles hover in the shade of Tifa's door. He revises muddled thoughts to little avail, recycling and discarding myriad clichés that deaden his tongue where he stands. This isn't the first time that he's contemplated ruining a life or two, and with a heart as beleaguered as his own, he recognises that it shan't be his last either.

 _This is Hell._

He swelters in discomfort, unease and ignorance.  
If only he could just _know_.

Through the wood, Cloud can hear the barmaid's mellifluent song. Tifa twitters and hums to herself sweet, airy lullabies that he too recognises. Nostalgia aches within him, its dreary crown emerging as if to plead for him to end its misery; to wrench ajar this terrible, misunderstood rift between them, and unshackle them from this perpetual childhood. Their youth, although precious, is a stubborn and toxic ivy which refuses their yearning adults hearts a voice of their own.

Cloud, as bull-headed as ever, is stubborn even with himself.

 _This isn't Hell._  
 _This is just damn ridiculous. Get a grip._

His fingers tighten upon the door handle.  
If all that behind him was Hell, and this threshold is Purgatory...

Then what's so wrong about wanting to open into the other side, after all?

* * *

 **II: Lust  
** _Forfeiture to impulses; raw, powerful and dangerous._

* * *

A loose bolt rips through the splintered bedpost, and mid-embrace the lovers are cast down the depressed mattress. Tifa gasps, her torrid, carnal purrs now lifted an octave as she cascades onto the floor together with Cloud. A spell of linen descends with them, ensnaring wild, spilt legs and draping across the voluptuous contours of Tifa's modesty, yet doing nothing to protect her partner's. She lands astride him, their expressions echoes of each other's surprise.

They wait a moment, their already rampant hearts shaken and tense with intuition. Cloud instinctively reaches across the timber boards for a weapon he has long since departed with, which fills his empty fist like the contractions of a phantom limb. Tifa's thighs girdle his bare midriff, and though they are smooth and sleek, toned cords of muscle quiver and squeeze against him. Their cheeks burn with the spoils of their intimacy.

When the world does not indeed end, Tifa bows her head down into Cloud's chest.  
Her breath is warm there and it prickles against his sensitive muscles, still mottled with bruises.

She begins to laugh.

Her lithe stomach shivers against his, her gaiety not entirely unfounded in this bizarre and unwelcome shift of scenery. Through all of their woes, their grief and their - dare he remind himself of his legacy - _strife_ , Cloud finds a soothing, musical allure to her joy. The delivery boy's lips adopt a soft, kinked smile.

He rests his hand upon her head, and skirts his thumb across her mussed hair. It's slow and almost lazy, imitating the gradual relaxation of their breathing.

"Well, after what we just tried," Cloud mutters shamelessly. "I think we both deserve to sleep on the floor tonight, anyway."

* * *

 **III: Gluttony  
** _Excessive, ravenous hunger; an untamed, insatiable desire._

* * *

Cloud's been watching their bloodshot, lecherous eyes dancing over his lover's body.  
He swills a finger of whiskey around the glass, glaring sullenly towards more customers who have misinterpreted 'Seventh Heaven'.

All of their late-night discussions about the dead and lost, ironing out their feelings hours at a time, and it's him who now suffers the dreadful taste of jealousy. It slithers down his throat with the searing lash of hard liquor, each insufferable kick after the next jogging his consciousness awake again - if only as a biological reaction to just how revolting the drink is. It's cheap, it's thick, and it's unpleasant, but it numbs him. And what he needs now is to not feel anything at all.

That is, until he reaches breaking point.

Tifa isn't responding to them. She's not hauling them out, one after another, taking those pigs out to pasture.  
She's smiling. She's oblivious to it all.

They're eyeing her up like orphans at a roast. Cloud simmers from the far end of the counter as a rosy-cheeked businessman in atrocious tweeds leans over and daringly pinches the barmaid's side, his plump and greasy fingers spelling the end of the former mercenary's patience. Unsteadily, Cloud stands from his bar stool, a vengeful, sunken-eyed look to him. One hand's groping against the bar for balance. He wonders what the price in this new world is for murder.

He doesn't have to find out.

Tifa whirls and sharply delivers a cartilage-splitting row of knuckles into the man's face. He's thrown from his seat with a squalling whimper, colliding against the floor with the sound of heavy, pulpy flesh thumping against wood. His nostrils are weeping thick, red rivulets from a mangled deformity, and he's blustering out all sorts of curses and whines as he fruitlessly dabs against the gurgling wound with his handkerchief. Tifa peers down at him, the bar still and punctuated only by the stunned whispers of the clientele, and picks up the man's pint glass. She thrusts her arm and showers the rest of the beverage over him, leaving him sodden and stinking in a mortified heap of blood and beer. His outrage brings babble about revenge and important friends as he scampers through the door.

"Let that be a reminder to _any_ of you who make the same mistake," Tifa calls out, nursing her blushing knuckles. She's out of practice. Soon, that darling smile of hers returns to its usual form, her monstrous tyranny over Seventh Heaven now possessed by scintillating kindness. "So, whose round is it, gentlemen?"

Cloud returns to his seat, without a word.

* * *

 **IV: Greed  
** _Avid consumption of material wealth; the sin of untempered ego._

* * *

There's a sign nailed to the front of Seventh Heaven, and it reads: ' _CLOSED'.  
_ Cloud's heart lulls, and his spirit with it.

Inside, he finds Tifa hunched over the bar counter, her body trembling with tears. Cloud hasn't seen her weep since they were children - not since that incident in the Nibelheim mountains. It's an awful sight, and that rending spectre of guilt manages to sink into his mind. It's a gloomy scene, a foe that Cloud cannot cleave with his blade. The wounds that run through her are not remedied with Potions or Phoenix Downs; they are of the worst and most pernicious sort. They are the scars that he cannot heal, the crushing failures that cannot diminish with a stern word or optimistic thought. They are the beasts that Cloud, with all of his steel, all of his magic, all of his prowess and his shell of uncultivated emotions stunted from puppetry, is unable to confront and defeat.

He has been unable to confront and defeat something before, and he was scared then.  
He feels that same fear now - the imminence of loss.

Cloud's boots tread with an ungainly weight against the floor, and his presence seems to startle the barmaid.  
She looks up at him sharply, streaks of anguish blemishing bleary and raw eyes.

"Tifa..."

"Oh, Cloud!" She rushes to him, not for the safety, or the reassurance - but to hide herself among his arms. Cloud's caress still bears that bitter fringe, always guarded, always secure against those he does not trust. She can feel that side of him now, but it isn't suspicion - he's sensitive. He's always been sensitive, and to her chagrin so has she. They hold themselves for the longest time, her not explaining, and him unwilling to know the truth.

Tifa relents, and pulls away from his chest in a wet, unflattering - and all-too _human_ \- sniff of dejection.

"Oh, Cloud... It's all gone," she sobs, clinging desperately onto him as though he, too, will vanish with the wind. At the very least, she's thankful that the fabric she's pouring her sorrows into is a dark navy. It hides the dampness well. "It's all _gone_ , Cloud! Denzel's _home_! _Our_ home! That man who was in here last week - he won it... and nobody _listened_ to me, nobody cared - _nobody_ cared, Cloud! Nobody cares what's going to happen to _Denzel_ , to _us_!" She stiffens against him, and there's a twinge of hot frustration in her cry. "Everything's _gone_ , all of it! All because that... _sleaze_ couldn't keep his _slimy fucking hands_ to himself!"

"I know," Cloud murmurs.

"No, you don't _know!"_ Tifa smoulders, recoiling from her indignity. "You _knew_ it was all today, and you weren't there! Where _were_ you?"

"I know," he says again.

"I thought we were _past_ all this, Cloud!" She wrestles herself out of his reach, her temper lighting up the dismal graveyard of the Seventh Heaven. "I thought we were _through_ with all those damn walls already, Cloud - what _happened_? If we shut each other out, _then_ what? Don't you dare slip away from me, too!"

"Tifa," Cloud drops a pregnant sack onto the bar, which slacks with Gil. "I know."

She stares at it as though it's some sort of abomination, stupefied. The air has flown from her lungs. She feels light, almost faint from the dream-like vision before her brimstone gaze, which begins to well with an inexpressible gratitude. There's nothing she can reveal in words that her shaken, vulnerable beauty has not already. It transpires, at last, that Cloud Strife is not completely incorrigible.

"Minus the change for three buses across town," he gestures idly. "I figured it's enough to kick-start our chances."

"But... _how_?" Tifa feels disgraceful. She's let herself be consumed by despondency, when she's stood at the mantle of the world and broken a God's jaw. She always provides the calming counsels, always lends Cloud his strength and courage. She never would have imagined that there would be one instance where the roof over Denzel and Cloud's heads was jeopardised, nor that the opposite of their relationship would ever be a possibility. It's not often that Tifa needs help, and it's not often that Tifa's made vulnerable, but her two boys and that bar mean the world to her. And she'd know, because she'd helped to damn well save it.

Cloud shrugs, "I'm not a delivery boy anymore."

* * *

 **V: Anger**  
 _Wrath in reaction; a destructive, molten blight._

* * *

Tifa's dress is magnificent.  
It's a bewitching light blue, woven from silk.

She's never been one for formal occasions, and from her rural beginnings, she's quite sure she never will be. It hadn't felt natural, but being accustomed to something and relishing in it are two entirely separate matters. It takes one truly special individual to encourage her out of her mould of leather and sneaker. It is a strange experience for her, styling her hair into lavish tresses that rippled across her bare shoulder. It's even more abnormal for her to slowly, delicately apply a scarlet accent of lipstick. The old Tifa briefly glimpses through, when eight attempts at stroking on foundation very nearly end with a fragmented mirror. She primps and scrutinises herself in the reflection, twisting herself this way and that to perfect every flaw but the knots coiling in her stomach.

She runs her palm across the material to flatten away the creases, and turns side-on to admire this... _stranger_.  
She pauses, and wonders if she likes this new, unknown girl.

In time, if she's given a chance, she may very well do so.

Tifa's dress is magnificent.  
It's draped across the lower corner of their bed.

Cloud is late.

He's always late.

The following morning, Tifa opens the door to Cloud slumbering in the corridor. He's dressed in garments she might have thought dashing twelve hours ago, but his shirt - unfitted and bland - is unbuttoned at the collar, and his jacket is blanketed over his knees. Her brow is arched inquisitively, and through the groggy lens of a rough night's sleep, he awakens to the sight of his scorned lover ruminating. Over _what_ , exactly, he is unsure - although he's certain it's regarding him.

"If you haven't got an apology for last night, mister," Tifa's smile is an equal blend of angel and devil. "Then at least tell me you're going to burn that shirt."

* * *

 **VI:** **Heresy**  
 _Renunciation of orthodox thought; the forsaken path of would-be history._

* * *

There's a riot several blocks away.  
The windows rattle against Cloud's fingers, even there in Seventh Heaven, as he surveys the turbulent crowd.

The marred corpse of ShinRa, the fallen industrial goliath of the world, limps on in characteristic tenacity. In Edge's central square, its spokespersons commemorate Meteorfall before the disorderly, baying masses. Chants of ' _murderers!_ ', each more vulgar and passionate than the next, overlap with other unsavoury insults towards their deceitful former masters. A halo of security strains to fend off the savage swathes from the monument's ruins, and ShinRa laps at the embers of its own disrepair. Cloud watches the streets seethe and bulge with dissent, the people herd-like, trampling one another into the pavement.

"It sounds like a war out there," Tifa muses from the bed. She slinks onto her front with feline fluidity, her curves dappled by the warm strobes of sundown.

Cloud agrees with her, but only in a perfunctory snort. Years ago, he'd bare steel against ShinRa's arrogant jugular. Years ago, he'd led the crusade inside the organisation's rotten veins themselves, and it's almost second-nature for him to walk out on all that's reasonable to revive it.

 _Almost_.

The former mercenary draws the curtains shut, and darkness breeds within the room.  
He turns away from ShinRa. He turns away from the bloodshed, and the thankless heroism, and the conflict.

He turns towards Tifa. He turns towards his future.

"Does it?"

* * *

 **VII: Violence  
** _The infliction of pain and chaos; the second face of Anger._

* * *

Blood, welts, and discord.  
Another day in Seventh Heaven.

"A glass broke," Tifa repeats up at him, skeptically.

"A glass broke," Cloud reaffirms. His hand is swaddled in bandages, and as he offers it to Tifa, her previous misgivings can't help but to linger a while longer. She studies and weighs the injured party like a watchmaker evaluating their newest piece, slowly leaning his clothed fingers up, or curling them to examine the joints. Tifa often plays the martial artist card; it's a blanket excuse to fuss over her disaster-magnet boyfriend. He hisses at the aided movement - an act.

She looks up at him, unconvinced, with that coquettish lilt of her brow.

"Ow," Cloud emphasises as if in answer. It's flat and forced, and _definitely_ not helping his case.

"All right," Tifa sighs, knowingly. She gains a facetious tone to unsettle him further. "Let's unwrap poor Cloud's little _boo-boos_ from his nasty accident - it must have been hard on him, dropping a glass _halfway_ _across the room..._ (!)"

"Stop it," he growls.

"Okay, sweetheart," she yields with such charming ease he's left to wonder if there's more to come. Tifa begins to unravel the bandages, one lap at a time, being cautious as to not irritate or scour against the sore flesh underneath. He's hiding something, but she'll pursue it later. Admonishing him is one thing, but she's not so cold-hearted as to leave him to fester under her watch. Lord knows, he can hardly take care of himself, prone to all manner of catastrophes. He's every element of his namesake - a cloud, billowing evanescently through the roar of thunder, the lash of lightning, or the burden of rain, and he'd tear apart and dissipate into the beyond if it weren't for her constant vigil over him. Then again, the same could be spoken of her fate alone here as well.

She peels away the final length of cloth.

What she's expecting is the completely clean skin that she's met with.  
So, in a sense, she's been right all along.

What Tifa isn't expecting is for a lustrous, diamond ring on the back of his hand to all but blind her.

* * *

 **VIII:** **Fraud**  
 _Deception of friend and foe alike for gain; to whisper smoke, but to mean daggers._

* * *

Cloud can't sleep.

He tries to relax against the headboard, listening to the low ambience of the city's nightlife. Drunken chatter, interspersed by the shivers of smooth engines sweeping headlong through the streets, is an oddly tranquil backdrop against the twilight. Street lamps flicker, electric fireflies incongruous against the squalor.

Beside him, Tifa flinches against the pillow.  
' _Mother,'_ she slurs. ' _Mother... Mother...'_

Cloud thinks nothing of it. Their wedding is arriving soon, and thoughts of family life are encroaching closer by the minute. He's no psycho-analyst, but it doesn't take a genius - they're both jittery, uncertain of how the marriage angle will influence their future. Then again, he reminds himself that all relationships are inherently born on risks. If there's no plunge, there's no impact. He'd have loped through life as a vagrant, perhaps, eternally wielding a mercenary personality.

He slips into a sleeveless black top, and peers in to check on Denzel.

The orphan's bundled up beneath an embroidered throw, but shivers restlessly in the gloaming.  
 _'Mother',_ the boy whimpers fearfully, _'Mother...'_

"Mother," Cloud utters through some mysterious compulsion. He covers his mouth as though he's a priest who's sinned, staring incredulously towards the floor. There are flames for a moment - diabolical, frenzied tendrils of fire that summon a dreadful, static note. His sight is forfeit to a blood-red mist, and he collapses to a knee. Slender, merciless eyes suffused with malice and Mako glower through at him. They gloat and taunt Cloud with a sinister, familiar hubris.

 _No more_ , he'd told Tifa.  
 _No more fighting. No more disappearances._

' _Come, Cloud...'_

He struggles to his feet, nails scraping against the wall plaster. _  
_

' _Join me, where I took my first drink of this Planet's life.'_

 _No more heroes._

When Tifa discovers the other half of their bed empty, the sheets disturbed and vacant, she crawls over to his bedside.  
There's a scrap of paper where his sword used to be.

And a knife in her heart.

' _I'm sorry,_ ' he writes to her. ' _Heroes never die.'_

* * *

 **IX: Treachery**  
 _A masterful and beguiling illusion; a lie._

* * *

They live on happily, for the remainder of their days.


End file.
